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Saturday, December 20, 2008

It only came to my attention recently that there were some other kelongs in the region around Bagan Lalang (near Port Dickson). I took a day leave today and didn't have anything planned. The rest of the gang were too busy to go fishing. The night before, I decided not to waste the day and just run up to Bagan Lalang to check out the state of the Kelongs there. Actually there are 3. The one that we went, which I believe is called Kelong Bagan Lalang (Update: Kelong Nazri), and 2 others that are called Mamod Kelong and Lukut Kelong. However, the trip was quite challenging as A had to be back by 8pm for her class. I thought Port Dickson could be reached in 2 hours, but I grossly underestimated the travelling time.

Rest stop at the newly renovated Machap

We were almost there

Balang Lalang Town? Again, can't find money changer

The hotel sri malaysia I read about on the net

Beautiful beach here, with fine sands. Looks clean too

D rushed out to play with the sand

The fish market behind

Nice scenic view. More resorts down the road

As usual, I woke up the family early and left the house around 5.45am. However being a weekday, clearing the checkpoint was a breeze. Although the officer took about 5 mins to clear each car. He would ask each one of us questions like "what is your birthday", "what is your ic number". Wow. Very soon, they could be game show host with all this training. Anyway, we cleared the custom and drive through the new Malaysian checkpoint for the first time. Clearance there was fast as it was still early and there were hardly cars. From there, I headed for NSH and navigated my way to Port Dickson. Since I didn't have time to change money, I was hoping to do so along the NSH. But it seemed that there were entirely no money changer all the way from NSH till Bagan Lalang.

We ended up having to beg people to take our Sin money and ask for them to change to ringget at 2:1 for us at our loss. Distance wise, the trip was not a trival one. At 9.30am, we hardly even reached Ayer Keroh, the turnoff for Malacca. That distance was already 200km. From there it was another 50km to the Pedas Linggi turnoff. However from there, it was another hour drive through long snakey roads to hit the west coast of Malaysia. By the time I reached the beach, it was already almost 11am. Mr sun was up and shining intensely. From there, I gave Nazri(the owner of the Kelong) a call, and we soon arranged for someone to pick us up at the Jetty.

Finally here at the Seafood restaurant

The Jetty to the 3 kelongs here

Price list for the Kelongs here

You can fish from there for RM3.Those people looked like they were having a good time

Fish Market. Orange plastic bags are udangs (prawns) for fishing

Balang Lalang is a nice scenic place, with a stretch of good beaches. There are quite a few resorts there, and even Hotel Sri Malaysia. There was also a village there with a fish market, and some seafood restaurants. It kind of reminded me of my trip to Kelong Paradise. It has a nice relaxing feel to it. Boatman came shortly and we were soon on the boat heading towards the Kelong. This Kelong is northern one and the boat trip was perhaps about 10 minutes. Reaching there, we saw a lone man fishing. The Kelong itself is not too big, maybe about the size of 2 hdb flat. It was neat and clean, and quite well built. The planks were good fitting and well joined. Boatman spread out a mat for us, and it was indeed quite comfy to be having a nap there. We got friendly with the man, and found out that he had been there since last night. But there were no decent catches for him.

350km to see this view

A tail of a 18kg Siakap (KBL, Seabass). Said to be common here

Can be fished all round the Kelong

Good workmanship on the Kelong

Helper laid a mat here for us. So comfortable

My very lucky catch. A Tengirri

Mr sharp teeth

All wanted to fish after that

A also got a small fish

I rigged up and started fishing. The water was quite shallow made worse by the outgoing tide. After 3 throws, I got a hit and saw a small fish dashing on my line. Man also got excited and shouted instructions for me to land the fish. He thought it was a threadfin, but it turned out to be a tengirri, although just a small one. I was happy too as it was my 2nd only tengirri that I ever landed. Wow, the fishing seemed to have gotten a good start. A and D also wanted to fish and they too managed some small fishes. But 15 minutes of that fishing, it got bad very suddenly. Tambans all not around. I had checked the tide table and thought the high tide was supposed tobe around 3pm. But I was wrong. Apparently my table was only for Singapore waters. Here, tide was in fact going down when I arrived. But one thing good, there were plenty of todaks around. However, I didn't have any bait fish to target them. What precious ones that I got, I used for bottom to test for bigger fishes.

Small tiny kitchen here

Maggi mee taste good while fishing

A improvised "fork" and "spoon" for our Maggi mee

Low tide, fishes all gone to Tuas Kelong

Another group came. Look at the number of rods! somemore in another bag

This cat is called "Pretty". More like "grouchy" to me :)

Therefore, the water turned bad and became river like as the water was flowing out inot the ocean. Throughout the fishing, I only got 2 tambans, 1 selar, 1 tengirri, 1 ACk (small one) and that was it. Due to us needing to head back to Singapore by 8pm, we had to leave the kelong around 3pm. But that was quite timely as at that time, a family of about 4 people and 1 cat came. But all the things they brought, there were about 20 rods. Therefore, it was just as well for us to leave. They would be staying overnite. However they were friendly and I did have a good chat with them on the local fishing and about the other 2 Kelongs. From what I gather, the other 2 kelongs have deeper waters and are good for big fishes.

Sir, faster. I have a class to catch

We were very near to KL

Early dinner break at Ayer Keroh reststop

A standing at the second counter waiting for cars to come by to ask to change money

We left soon and started out from the car about 3.45pm. From there, we made a stop at Ayer keroh for A&W meal and after that, it was straight all the way back to Singapore. I had to feed myself with Red Bull to made the tiresome trip. We made it in good time, and managed to get A to her lesson at about 8.40pm. We had a delay at the My toll when they wouldn't accept our touch&go card as we had run out of money. We had to reverse and again beg people in the cars to change money for us. One cheeky MY cab driver said he would change 50 ringget for 50 sin. What an a**! A kind tour bus driver agreed to change for us at $50 to RM100, which was fair enough. At the end of the trip, checking my tripmeter, I had driven 650km for the day. All for a 3-4 hour fishing trip :)

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